Why is it that the Windows 10 Mail app has an "as items arrive" setting but Outlook 2016 doesn't?

So I'm on the latest build of Windows 10 (the one ending in 420), and I've got Outlook 2016 always running in the background. But somehow both my phone and the Windows 10 Mail app manage to be more useful than Outlook 2016 when it comes to fetching mail immediately, or as it arrives. Outlook 2016 is stuck fetching mail every 5-10 minutes because apparently there's no simple "as items arrive" option for this unnecessarily expensive program.

Really, Microsoft?

Today I went 2 hours without a single Outlook 2016 notification. The moment I shut my computer off and checked my phone before going to bed... you guessed it. I had 2 new emails from work timestamped to 1 hour ago!!! And I never got a desktop notification or email alert from Outlool 2016 while my computer was on! I've checked and rechecked the mail notification settings for Windows 10 and every single notification setting is set to 'on'. Yet I receive new mail alerts so inconsistently on Outlook that I'm considering asking MS for a refund, if they'll give me one.

So I'm on the latest build of Windows 10 (the one ending in 420), and I've got Outlook 2016 always running in the background. But somehow both my phone and the Windows 10 Mail app manage to be more useful than Outlook 2016 when it comes to fetching mail immediately, or as it arrives. Outlook 2016 is stuck fetching mail every 5-10 minutes because apparently there's no simple "as items arrive" option for this unnecessarily expensive program.

Really, Microsoft?

Today I went 2 hours without a single Outlook 2016 notification. The moment I shut my computer off and checked my phone before going to bed... you guessed it. I had 2 new emails from work timestamped to 1 hour ago!!! And I never got a desktop notification or email alert from Outlool 2016 while my computer was on! I've checked and rechecked the mail notification settings for Windows 10 and every single notification setting is set to 'on'. Yet I receive new mail alerts so inconsistently on Outlook that I'm considering asking MS for a refund, if they'll give me one.

Is there anything I can do to remedy my situation?

I believe the settings for outlook 2016 are in the program for desktop notifications . Open outlook, go to file > options > mail > scroll down until you see something about mail delivery - it has 4 check boxes - for sound, desktop notifications and 2 others I can't remember. Are they ticked?

You can also check to see if notifications are enabled in settings >system > notifications for outlook 2016

If you need additional help or have more questions or details to share, please join the site so you can reply in this thread. See this link for instructions on how to join Windows Central.